Call of Duty, Minecraft, CastelMiner and Grand Theft Auto score most users on Xbox Live in 2012

Today Microsoft’s Major Nelson revealed the most popular Xbox titles for 2012 across a number of categories.

Games were scored across two main metrics: “unique users per day connected to Xbox Live,” or the number of full versions that a game sold during the calendar year. The top titles won’t surprise you: Call of Duty, Halo, and Minecraft are household names for a reason.

Still, the information is interesting as it highlights the fact that the Xbox platform remains a diverse, and powerful gaming console; much has been made of Microsoft’s smooth transition with the Xbox brand, reposisitioning it as a media delivery tool for the whole family.

The following lists are broken up by type, which is listed about each section of bullet points:

Top titles based on unique usership:

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Halo 4

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Top arcade titles based on sales:

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition

Trials Evolution

The Walking Dead

Pinball FX2

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Top ‘indie’ titles based on sales:

CastleMiner Z

CastleMiner

Total Miner: Forge

Avatar Deathmatch

FortressCraft Chapter 1

And for fun, here are the top titles for Games for Windows, based on unique usership:

GTA IV

Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition

Age of Empires Online

Batman Arkham City

Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition

If your favorite didn’t crack the top five, the Major has lists that extend through the top twenty. However, at some point data has diminishing returns.

What would be great to see would be the raw figures behind these rankings, allowing us to parse the relative popularity of the titles based on something more than absolute ranking. Sadly, the chance of Microsoft releasing that information is roughly equivalent to the firm publishing sales figures for the Surface.